The 47th annual News & Documentary Emmy Awards began honoring the year’s top journalism and news programming on Wednesday at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Frederick P. Rose Hall in New York City, with the Documentary awards scheduled for Thursday night. The news ceremony highlighted a broad range of reporting, from breaking coverage and investigative work to science, health, climate, and social issue storytelling. ABC News journalist Martha Raddatz received the lifetime achievement award from the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, while Amber Ruffin hosted the Wednesday event. Michael Ian Black is set to emcee the documentary ceremony, which begins Thursday at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT and will stream on the NATAS YouTube channel.
National Geographic entered the awards week with a record 51 nominations, led largely by its Trafficked series, and it emerged as one of the night’s biggest winners across multiple categories. Trafficked with Mariana van Zeller won in several areas, including science and technology coverage for Scam City, climate, environment or weather coverage for Shark Hunters, health or medical coverage for The Tranq Dope Underground, arts, culture or entertainment coverage for Underground Street Racing, social issue coverage for Black Market Love, direction for Black Market Love, and research for Brides for Sale. The series also underscored National Geographic’s strong presence in investigative and feature journalism.
Other major winners included BBC News for Outstanding Continuing Coverage: Short Form with Earthquake in Myanmar, and The Guardian for Outstanding Continuing Coverage: Long Form with Along the Green Line. Retro Report won Outstanding Light Feature: Short Form for What Japan’s Atom Bomb Survivors Have Taught Us, while ABC News took Outstanding Light Feature: Long Form for Operation Babylift: The 50 Year Journey. CBS News won Outstanding Hard News Report: Short Form for The War in Gaza, and CNN Worldwide won Outstanding Hard News Report: Long Form for Chasing a Ghost: The Search for Austin Tice.
The New York Times won Outstanding Investigative Coverage: Short Form for DOGE Package, while FRONTLINE and its partners won Outstanding Investigative Coverage: Long Form for Strike On Iran: The Nuclear Question. More Perfect Union was recognized for Outstanding News Discussion & Analysis with Deport Them All: Who’s to Blame for Springfield’s Immigrant Crisis? CNN Worldwide won Outstanding Interview: Short Form for Jeremy Diamond’s exchange with a Hamas official, and ABC News won Outstanding Interview: Long Form for Eric Dane Speaks.
Al Jazeera International USA won Outstanding War or Violent Conflict Coverage and Outstanding Writing: News for Kids Under Fire. NBC News won both Outstanding Video Journalism and Outstanding Editing for Filmed In Gaza. Bloomberg Originals took Outstanding Business, Consumer or Economic Coverage for The Zombie Debts Making Wall Street Rich and Outstanding Cold Open or Title Sequence for How New Magnets Could Power the Future.
Spanish-language journalism was also prominently recognized. Victor Valles Mata won Outstanding Journalist in Spanish Language, Jorge Ramos: Asi Veo las Cosas I’m Back won Outstanding News Program in Spanish, Noticias Telemundo won Outstanding Breaking News Story in Spanish for its Los Angeles fires coverage, and ProPublica and The Texas Tribune won Outstanding Investigative News Coverage in Spanish for Sobreviviendo al CECOT. Hanako Montgomery of CNN Worldwide won Outstanding Emerging News Journalist, while ABC News earned Technical Excellence in News for Live from the Southern California Fires.
Regional news winners included WDSU for Hurricane Francine Live Rescue and KMOV-TV for Inspecting the Inspectors.
